


more inhuman, more inexorable

by ImperialEvolution



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Asexual Character, Gen, Internalised aphobia, M/M, Relationship Study, all about the "warren's fucked about touch" train!, bastardisation of religious imagery, gratuitous shakespeare
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:55:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23176555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImperialEvolution/pseuds/ImperialEvolution
Summary: If by direct or by collateral handThey find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours,To youin satisfaction;
Relationships: Daniel Jacobi & Warren Kepler & Alana Maxwell, Daniel Jacobi/Warren Kepler, Marcus Cutter/Warren Kepler, Warren Kepler & Alana Maxwell, Warren Kepler & Isabel Lovelace, Warren Kepler & Renée Minkowski
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	more inhuman, more inexorable

**Author's Note:**

> TW/CW: dubious consent re:kissing, panic attacks, dissociation, shitty, shitty work relationships and abuse of authority, and religious, largely Christian imagery.
> 
> Please read at your own discretion. The next chapters will be much fluffier, if you wanna stick with it!
> 
> Today's quote is from Othello, spoken by Desdemona, Act 4, Scene 2 and reads:  
>  _No, as I am a Christian:  
>  If to preserve this vessel for my lord  
> From any other foul unlawful touch  
> Be not to be a strumpet, I am none._

And here’s the thing; Warren feels _sick_ , but at least it’s familiar. Whenever his mother would drag him to Church and force him to his knees, he would throw himself at God, and all he’d get in return is that disgusting feeling in the back of his throat.

And Kerr is not God, good Lord, he’s nothing _close_ , but the feeling in his chest now, as Kerr grabs his shirt and pulls him into a bitter-tasting kiss, that’s a rapture. Isn’t it?

_Isn’t it?_

So Warren kisses back, even as the door, an escape route, vies for the panic-edged attention of his racing mind.

No, certainly not God. But he is kind, in his way. Every time he sends Warren away and every time Warren comes back with blood on his skin and in his hair and Kerr will wash him clean. As clean as he can get with Kerr’s hands in his hair and teeth biting pain into his lips.

His eyes are closed, and Warren wonders if his should be too, but he can’t bring himself to surrender entirely to him.

There’s blood under his nails, still. Stupid, a faux par. He should have got the blood off well before leaving. And yet there’s blood under his nails as he pushes Kerr against the ornate desk in the centre of the room. Kerr seems to take it as an invitation, dragging him along with him.

Kerr’s hands are vice-like on the collar of his shirt.

Warren can’t help but wonder what it would be to stain Kerr with blood-soaked hands, to let Kerr place Warren’s hands, still clawed and cruel, over his heart.

Kerr finally breaks away, their noses almost touching in some shambling faux intimacy, and Warren just breathes, choking down the sickening feeling he’s decided to call worship.

(He hates to call it affection, burning and harsh in the back of his throat. He knows affection, despite his calloused and broken hands and barbwire tongue, the saccharine sweet sickness it is. This is not that.)

Kerr has always been reserved in his albeit feigned affection, his mockery of sweetness. His touch, when he deigns to grace Warren’s skin with his silken fingertips, is firm and lawful. He knows what he wants. He’s a visionary. Or a romantic, maybe—though Warren can’t say some great love affair plays in Kerr’s eyes now, torrid and forbidden as it may be; Warren’s always had a soft spot for dreamers.

Kerr doesn’t speak, for once in his goddamn life.

Warren’s hands are shaking. He knows this, and as hard as he tries to temper it, they still tremor with an intensity he cannot for the life of him control.

“Warren,” Kerr says, barely a breath against his cheekbones.

“Sir?"

It’s a prayer, Warren realises, a plea to God above or Kerr before him to let him flee, have his shaking hands freed from the alter Kerr had made of his own body.

“What do you want?”

Panic cinches in Warren’s throat.

The Lord was not one to ask what he wanted. God above never once asked Warren what he needed, never stooped to accommodate for him, when his worship was as false as the delicate fingertips in his hair, as the blood that hums under Kerr’s skin. Not when Warren would not kneel.

Warren isn’t sure if he should kneel now.

No, Kerr is not God, but he is the only man Warren has ever bowed his head for, the only man he lets press sick lips into his skin, his temple, the hallow of his throat. A part of him wants to see if Kerr would bleed, should he run his nails over his skin. He has a sneaking suspicion he’d wear blood like a crown.

There is blood under Warren’s fingernails.

“I don’t know,” he says, truthful, though he never had trouble lying at the altar before.

His hands are shaking prayer and his fingernails are stained red crescent moons and the oil slick feeling in the back of his throat only spreads and he hates this he hates this he hates this. He feels like prey under Kerr’s steel gaze, eyeing him like a cat would a mouse under its paws.

“Would you want anyone else?”

“Sir?”

“Warren,” he replies in joyful mockery of his confusion.

He’s a fool to think to ask an explanation from someone like him. His mother always said that the things God did needed no explanation. But there were things that Warren could never justify, when he turned to his mother it was always the same answer, _the Lord needs no reason to test your faith_. Is that what this is? A measure of Warren’s worship? 

You shall not have any God before me.

“No,” he says, choking back the oil stain Kerr’s made of the back of his throat. “No, sir.”

Kerr’s mouth curls into the barest of smiles. “A shame.” He releases his grip on Warren’s lapels and air floods back into his lungs. “Things are about to change, Warren.”

Warren swallows. This is it, this is how he dies. He feels it in his bones, crushing dread and absolute certainty.

“There is going to be a new director of communications. His name will be Marcus Cutter.”

Oh.

Relief floods through him, soothing the tremor of his hands. He’s fine, he’s safe. (As safe as he can be, curled around Kerr’s finger.) Then the weight of it hits him.

 _Oh_.

“Wha—Do you know him, sir?”

Kerr laughs, a surprisingly gentle thing. He leans back against the desk, propping himself up with his hands behind him. (Warren feels his shoulders relax some, to see his hands so far away.)

“Warren, I am him,” he says, his laugh still carrying in his voice. “Or, I will be him.”

There’s something about the sickly sweet smile he offers him that makes Warren feel horribly cornered.

“I don’t understand, sir.”

He hums, smiling unpleasantly. “No, you don’t. But you will.”

For once in his life, Warren’s stripped for words. The hollows of his chest amplify the silence between the two of them.

Kerr smiles at him, almost gently. Almost. He presses a manila file into his chest, his fingers splayed against his sternum. “Be a doll and give this to Richard, won’t you?”

The feeling of his hands jumps in his chest, his stomach plunging sharply into the unknown. Warren swallows his fear worship and takes the folder with a simple, “Yes, sir.”

The phantom feeling of Kerr’s gaze drives pylons into his neck as he leaves. As soon as the door closes behind him, Warren presses himself to the door and oh-so silently _screams_.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading and I'm sorry. Find me @imperial-evolution on tumblr :D


End file.
